For comfort, the suit would let the users move their heads side to side, but only slowly. However, since the diodes could do all sorts of neat tricks with vision, the peripheral vision was actually superior to normal and far and near sighting were enhanced. That was before any special requests like “heads up” displays, weaponry displays, distant viewing, split screen viewing or sixty-seven other abilities.
“Lieutenant Colonel Youngman is currently busy and he won’t notice unless we detonate them. When we detonate them, you will be a hero for taking the initiative because it will be the only thing that saves the right flank of the Corp from being rolled up.”
“Is it that bad?” asked the engineer, wondering how much his friend’s moroseness was justified. Although he would have preferred to lay out a full reception for the Posleen, the firepower of the battalion was massive.
“Tom, we’re about to be corncobbed and there ain’t a fuckin’ thing I can do about it. After this day the name Youngman will be right up there with Custer, except George Armstrong had a brilliant career before he pissed it away. Now get rigging the charges. Make the cratering charges big ones. I want them to tear the faces right off the megascrapers; they’ve got forty minutes max.”
“Fuck it,” said the officer with an attempted shrug. “You’re right, nobody will notice unless we have to blow ’em. You want both Boulevards mined? What about 7th Cav?”
“Yeah, if Cav falls back they’ll want the cover,” he paused. “There’s the gust front.”
“Huh?” asked the lieutenant, looking out the window toward where the enemy could be expected to appear.
“A bunch, a real shit pot full of Indowy are headed this way,” said Mike, slaved to the distant view of the scout leader. “Get your guys to work, Tom. Now!”
Lieutenant Eamons gave his friend an unseen nod of farewell and casually blasted a hole in the wall with his M-200. Stepping into thin air, his command suit floated him, gentle as a feather, the ten stories to ground level. With the fusion bottles of the megascrapers to draw on there was no lack of energy and it was the quickest and most fun way down. Because it was “untactical” it was forbidden by the battalion but the unit was going to open up the minute they saw the Posleen, so what was one more hole? It made as much sense as not having his people prepare hard defenses because they would “reveal the MLR.” Like the whole battalion opening up on them wouldn’t reveal the MLR to the Posleen? Mike was right, they were going to get corncobbed.
Tom looked around as he drifted down, again marveling at the mixture of alien and familiar. Take New York City, please! Simplify the glass facades. Choose one style, similar to the twin towers. Make it .914 miles high and 1.145 miles square. The deep, dim canyons were similar to those found in any major Terran city, but deeper, darker. As he grounded he was reminded of the other differences. The gravity was slightly lower and the sunlight had a greenish tinge like fluorescent lighting. It was also brighter, bright as an acetylene torch when it shone on the hard packed clay that replaced asphalt; the grav drives needed no special surface for support. And no plants, not even a blade of grass or the green of a window box. He entered a cavernous portal in the ground floor, one of several for vehicle entry and exit, and began bounding down the long, echoing corridor. “AID, give me a route to my platoon’s assembly area and connect me to the platoon sergeant.” It was time to do some work.
Mike continued to watch the thickening spray of Indowy refugees on Sisalav Boulevard. Cutting the view to one quarter of his visor, he saw them in real-time entering the battalion’s sector. He heard “Hold fire” calls on the company nets he was monitoring and smiled; the little Indowy could hardly have looked less like the enemy. The hairy little bipeds were on foot, covered in a layer of yellowish dust from the roads and fleeing unencumbered. They seemed not to have the human urge to maintain possessions.
“AID, where’s their transportation?” asked Mike, puzzled. There were none of the cars, trucks or even manhandled carts that would be expected with a similar group of humans.
“They have no need for it, so virtually no Indowy have transports. Few of them leave the megascrapers in their entire lives; indeed, few leave a single area, a floor or a sector. A few never leave a series of rooms. All they need is in the building, their quarters, food workshops and baths.”
“Where are they going? Do they know?”
“No, there is no support for refugees. If they are nonproductive they are of no consequence. Some will find menial positions, a few with special skills may find employment, but the vast majority will eventually die of exposure or starvation.”
Mike shivered in his plastic womb; the more he learned about Galactic ethos, the less he liked.
“Show me a schematic of primary water and sewer pipes connecting to Qualtren and Qualtrev with diameter and access notations.” It bothered him that the plan was so one dimensional. A few of the upper stories were being used but the vast subbasements and sewers were being ignored. In WWII the Russians and Germans both used sewers to good effect. At least the entire Posleen mass would not be able to fire at them if they were underground. He studied the schematic and frowned in puzzlement.
“Michelle, those supply systems — I don’t care how minimalist the Indowy are, there are not enough and large enough water supply lines or sewage disposal lines. What gives?”
“Most water and sewage are recycled in the megascraper.”
“Hmm.” The water pipes were still big enough to move around in. “Michelle, instruct all AIDs to begin a plot for every individual and small unit to the nearest water pipe access. Prepare a retreat plan to Saltrev/Saltren via underground connections and update a defense plan. Continuously update Kobe and Jericho on the basis of engineering platoon advancements. Prepare to coordinate demolition plan with Alpha and Bravo companies. And we’ll have to find a way to shut down the flow.” Expect victory, plan for defeat.
The flood of Indowy was starting to choke the boulevard, their gray-green bodies pressed together, packing the wide road from side to side. He could see more flooding out of Waltren from the point of view of the scout platoon leader, those tributaries adding to the flood. The street was as packed as Wall Street at lunch time, as packed as a papal mass with the lemminglike flood of Indowy. Their sturdy little bodies were being smashed against the unyielding metal faces of the buildings, crushing the young, old and weak alike underfoot. Lesser streams wound into and through Naltren and Naltrev, across the avenue and into Qualtrev/Qualtren, every individual contributing to both the pressure and the panic.
As the major force of Indowy refugees reached Qualtren/Qualtrev, the back pressure and the turn combined to drive thousands of the small humanoids into the northwest quadrant of Qualtren’s lower floors. There they encountered 1st platoon of Charlie company and the effect was shattering.
Individually the Indowy had the manners and aggressiveness of a rabbit but in that vast panicked horde they acted like stampeding buffalo. When the wave front hit 1st platoon the Indowy entering the many ground floor openings at first went around the armored humans arrayed within. Then, as the pressure mounted, they started jostling the soldiers and climbing on and over them. As the weight mounted of first a handful, then a dozen then hundreds of panicked extraterrestrials, the suited troopers were toppled and began to thrash under the stampede. As they thrashed and kicked, trying to clear them away, the servo-assisted armor smashed and splattered the inoffensive little creatures painting their green ichor across the pastel walls. The ichor only added to the problem, making the floor slippery with body fluids.